What's your source for heating your fermentation chamber

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kegtoe

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Winter is fast approaching for those of us near Canada.

I am looking to build a fermentation chamber that would sit in my un-insulated garage. Therefore i need a source of heat for my box. It will hold several (three or four) 5 gallon vessels. It will be about 3 feet hight 2.5 feet deep and 4 feet wide. I am looking for some suggestions for what to use as a heat source for this chamber.

i have some spare heating matts that were originally for seedlings. I also thougth about using a lamp, or maybe even a small space heater. HTe space heater thing worries me a bit.

Let me know what your suggestions are or what you use. Pics are also apprecitaed.
 
I'd go with a heat lamp and a small fan to circulate the air in the chamber.
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they also make small ceramic heaters with built in fans
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I use one of the small ceramic heaters with built in fan. They're cheap and work great, though I have to replace mine about once a year due to the moisture inside the chest freezer.
 
I use a cheap light fixture with a ceramic terrarium heat bulb. I was initially going to use a regular infrared heat bulb, but was worried about the light skunking the beer, so I spent a few extra bucks for the ceramic one that doesn't emit any light. It goes underneath the shelf that holds the fermenters, and I've never had any issue from the lack of air movement.
 
40w, 60w or 100w light bulb depending on how much heating I need. Not too worried about the light skunking the beer since I ferment in cornies
 
I use a ceramic terrarium heat bulb with a small fan connected in series mounted on the opposite wall of the "chamber". Chamber is very well insulated and will hold four carboys.
 
I also use a hair dryer....it has a built in GFI on the cord and it circulates the air perfectly...and the price is right.I have it attached to the inside wall with velcro.Haven`t had a problem yet.:mug:
 
I am working on keeping my first non room-temp fermenting beer, and as I don't want to worry about regulating a heat lamb, I am using hot water. My fermenting bucket is in my brew kettle, and the spare area is filled with water and an aquarium heater is in there set to the temp I need.

I just have to be certain the heater is away from the bucket to avoid heat concentrations and potential melting. Had this happen at my work, but it wasn't water and beer, but ferric acid. Woops!
 
I use a water bath with an aquarium heater. Last year, I put this setup into my Son of Fermentation Chiller. I also added my Love TSS2 controller so I can control cooling and heating at the same time. This setup worked great for controlling temps, BUT the warm water bath made tons of condensation inside the chiller which led to mildew. Now I need a source of dry heat. I'm thinking about a light bulb mounted inside a soup can (with a couple of vent holes).

The aquarium heater works great for bottle carbing, since that's in the open air.
 
I use a light bulb in my Son of a Fermentation Chamber. At first I thought I'd be clever and use one of those fancy CFL bulbs, but they do not put off nearly enough heat to maintain fermentation temps when it's really cold out. Since I have all by brewery related item outside in my 'brewshed'.
 
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